On-Premises Exchange 2003 to Office 365 Migration Guide

Introduction

This is the complete onboarding task flow for migrating mailboxes from On-Premises Exchange 2003 servers to Office 365.

Complete each step in order. Links to corresponding Knowledge Base articles are provided.

If your Source server is running Exchange version 2007 or later, refer to KB005903.

We strongly recommend that you use HealthCheck for Office 365 to check ahead of time to see if end user hardware and software is compatible with Office 365. Note: HealthCheck for Office 365 is a free utility. KB005407

We also strongly recommend that you use DeploymentPro to reconfigure the Outlook profiles in this migration scenario. Note: DeploymentPro requires licenses to be purchased before it can be used. Subscriptions include DeploymentPro. However, if you are not using subscriptions, and you are using mailbox licenses, you must purchase additional DeploymentPro licenses in order to use DeploymentPro.

Prepare the Source Environment

Set up an administrator account for migration on the Source Exchange mailbox server. KB004725

If you want to migrate archived email with in-flight stub rehydration, deploy the Archive Extractor Agent in the Source environment. KB005639

Note: Archived email migration is only supported for Veritas Enterprise Vault 9 and 10. All other versions are currently not supported. Read KB005463 to learn more about archive email migration with in-flight stub rehydration.

Important: BitTitan cannot migrate items in vault stores that are not associated with a vault store group; that is, when a vault store’s group version field is empty.

Prepare the Destination Environment

Create an administrator account in Office 365 to be used for migration, or use the global admin account for the tenant. KB004948

Set up accounts on Office 365 and assign licenses. These can be created in several ways:

Purchase licenses. From your MSPComplete dashboard, click on Purchase > Mailbox Migration > select MigrationWiz-Mailbox and enter the number of licenses you wish to purchase. Note: Check to see if there are any available bundles for discounts (e.g., MigrationWiz-Mailbox and DeploymentPro Bundle). KB004647

Deploy DMA to users. Once DMA has been deployed to users, check the Users tab in MSPComplete. This will be populated with the user accounts that have DMA installed. DMA can be deployed by these options:

Via Group Policy Object (GPO). Note: This is the recommended methodology, because no end user interaction is required. KB005412video

Go all All Products > HealthCheck for Office 365 and follow the prompts to launch.

Select a customer from the list by clicking on the customer name. Note: The status column will show enabled when a customer account has had DMA deployed.

Review results. Note: If any computers have a red X on their row, you should review the detailed results by clicking on the pie chart in the far right-hand part of the row.

Include upgrading action items and costs in your Statement of Work.

Perform remediation steps.

DeploymentPro Steps

Launch DeploymentPro.

Enter the Domain.

Select the Destination endpoint.

Checkmark the Auto-populate box.

In the Client Interface Configurations section, upload your company logo and add supporting text. Note: We strongly recommend doing this, because this is the logo and text that end users will see in a desktop pop-up when they are prompted to reconfigure their Outlook profiles. If you do not upload your own logo, the default BitTitan logo will be included instead.

Save and continue.

Go to All Products > DeploymentPro and follow the prompts to launch.

Select a customer from the list by clicking on the customer name. Note: The status column will show enabled when a customer account has had DMA deployed.

Configure customer DeploymentPro module:

Activate DeploymentPro module for users.

Either select all users (by putting a checkmark in the box to the left of the Primary Email column heading), or select individual users (by putting a checkmark in the boxes to the left of the user email addresses). Note: DeploymentPro requires licenses to be purchased before it can be used. Subscriptions include DeploymentPro. However, if you are not using subscriptions, and you are using mailbox licenses, you must purchase additional DeploymentPro licenses in order to use DeploymentPro.

Click on the Run Module button.

Schedule the profile cutover date.

Notes:

The DeploymentPro module will install on user devices immediately, and then run silently until this date.

The profile cutover date should be set to a date and time that is shortly after the MX record cutover.

Set the date and time for the Outlook profile configuration to occur, and click on the Run Module button.

On the profile cutover date, users will be guided through the reconfiguration of their Outlook profile.

Set to use impersonation at Destination. Checkmark the Use impersonation at Destination box. KB004727

Set Maximum concurrent migrations. When Exchange 2003 is the Source server, it is very important that this number should be set to a low value, to ensure that the Source server does not run out of resources. To be very safe, we recommend initially setting this to 5. This means that when all mailboxes are selected and the migration begins, only the first five (5) mailboxes in the list will be migrated (using parallel processing), and then when the first of the five (5) completes, the next in the list will begin migrating, and so on down the list, through to completion of all mailboxes. If the Source server has enough server resources, set this parameter based on the bandwidth guideline of three (3) mailboxes per 1Mbps of bandwidth. Therefore, for example, if there is a 10Mbps connection, we recommend that the maximum concurrent migrations parameter be set to 30.

The following options are the most valuable for this migration scenario:

Note: If you are migrating in batches and coexistence is required, you will not be cutting over the MX records until your final batch of users has been migrated, and you must perform two extra steps:

Send email to end users to let them know what to expect for their Outlook profile reconfiguration. If using DeploymentPro, refer to KB005799 for some sample text and screen shots that can be included in this email.

Full (Delta) pass: Select the users > Click on the Start button from the top, select Full Migration > Click on Start Migration. KB004938